Venue
881 Granville Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V6Z 1K7
881 Granville Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V6Z 1K7
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing all 14 comments
March 1963, the Odeon opened with Lawrence of Arabia. I didn’t attend, but did make a point of attending the first matinee at the Plaza in 1988. Lawrence of Arabia 6 or was it Police Academy 6?
Anyone interested history should read this.. scroll right. Plaza->Odeon Paradise->Coronet. Next? Nova->Totem. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=q5VlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TooNAAAAIBAJ&pg=7286%2C1999246
ScreenClassic’s rendition of the history is correct.
At some point under Cineplex’s ownership ( could have been 1984 ) They converted the Park to platter and moved the second Victoria 10 projector to the then Odeon, later Plaza.
This was done to allow a move over house from the other cinemas with 70MM product.
The Plaza opened in 1936 and was renamed as the Odeon in 1963, not in the years listed above. Cineplex closed the theatre in 1987 when the Granville 7 opened, but Famous Players took over the lease and reopened it as the Plaza again in 1988. Two years after FP closed it, the Plaza reopened in 1993 (first under Leonard Schein as an art-house venue, then later under another lease as a second-run house) and continued running on-and-off until it closed for good as a movie theatre in 1997.
The club has reopened after finally completing renovations on July 16th. It has a new name of “Venue”, but the previous name still stands on the enormous vertical sign.
Official website: http://www.venuelive.ca
This is a 2009 photo.
The Plaza Club is now closed.
According to the PSTOS website, the Maple Leaf Theater had a 2/3 Robert Morton organ.
More images and a 360 VR tour can be found at this link.
Before becoming the Plaza, the theater’s grand opening was as the Maple Leaf Theater in 1924. It went dark a few years later due to the depression. It was later remodeled and reopened as the Plaza as a movie house.
Here are a couple of photos circa 1925. One shows both the Maple Leaf and Globe (later Paradise, then Coronet before it was integrated into the Empire Granville Cinemas.
View link
View link
The links posted on May 15, 2007 expired so here is the 1939 photo and this is the 1948 photo.
There was a Maple Leaf Theater operating in the 1920s that was located at 881 Granville Street. Could that be a previous name for the Odeon Theater?
Here is a February 4, 1939 photo of the Plaza Theater. And this is a 1948 photo of the Plaza Theater.
This theatre has been renovated into a nightclub named The Plaza, opened in 2002. The block lettered marquee remains, and has become a nice addition to the streets night life.